Later, as Blagdon stood turning over the card-tray one afternoon, Letty adventured a timid expostulation. “Now look here,” he said impatiently, “I’m not going to have gossiping women, and sponging old men, running in and out of this house, sniffing about for what they can get--amusement, shootin’, and good dinners. I have my own friends, and I don’t want their society. You can just send round your cards by a footman,--and let that end it. Of course, the County is another affair,” still examining the cards as he spoke. “Viscount and Viscountess Lyndham, Sir Cosmo and Lady Alice Danvers--yes, these sort of people are all right. By the way, I see the Duchess hasn’t honoured you yet--she’s taking her time. The old girl wanted to saddle _me_ with one of her ugly daughters, so she won’t be very keen upon you, Mrs. Blagdon!” The expected ‘County’ now came day after day rolling up the Avenue to visit Sharsley; and the shy bride, seated alone in a magnificent new landau, drove about the country, returning calls, and inwardly praying that her hostesses might be out! being secretly afraid of the solid, important matrons, among whom she now took rank--as Mrs. Blagdon of Sharsley. She noted the merry bicyclists who sped by in couples, the happy good-looking pair, evidently lately married, driving in a high tax-cart, he with his arm round the girl’s waist, their faces radiant with smiles,--a sheep their fellow-passenger. They stared with wide-eyed admiration at the lovely young lady in a beautiful dress, sitting so erect behind a pair of slashing steppers,--and little dreamt how she envied them! Her husband made no secret of his disgust, and disillusion; scenes were frequent--when he scolded, blustered, and stormed, she wept; when they were alone, conversation was nil; to her timid questions, the answers were generally a grunt; and the miserable girl began to feel that her youth was paralysed and petrified. Often and often, she wished herself back once more in the little top-room at The Holt--could more be said? There, she was partly free; here, she was an abject slave; and at the beck and call of a man whom she heartily feared. The newly married couple, were invited to formal dinners or to dine, and sleep, at various important places, and the general verdict on the bride was, that she was a pretty nonentity, dull as a kitchen-garden on a winter’s day, who looked positively ashamed of her French gowns and her superb diamonds; and it was no love match. Hugo contradicted his wife flatly; he had been overheard to assure her that her hat was hideous, and she--worse still--“was a wooden-headed little fool.” Part of August and September found the Blagdons in Scotland; by the time they had returned home, they had drifted almost entirely apart. * * * * *